


I have tried to hoard your love (and found it slipping through my fingers)

by Ro29



Series: Whumptober 2019 [5]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Books, Character Study, Gen, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Love, Tear-stained, a little bit of a, ig
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:47:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21565261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ro29/pseuds/Ro29
Summary: Jason Todd and books(And the complex thing that is a child's desperate need to be loved.)
Series: Whumptober 2019 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1513001
Comments: 6
Kudos: 91





	I have tried to hoard your love (and found it slipping through my fingers)

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt 'Tear-Stained' for whumptober day 14
> 
> I don't really know what this is, just take it.

Sometimes he wakes up terrified and other times he’s just tired.

There are things he sees and memories on replay and an entire fucked up life and death in his head that leaves him terrified

And there are memories that make him want to cry and just sleep for a long, long time.

He used to read a lot, still _does_ read a lot, old books and books that are too big for someone like him to read, someone who is 'too young' or 'too poor' or 'too dirty' or 'too simple to ever be able to understand such complex subjects.'

He almost punches the kid who tells him that in the face, he doesn’t, but only because he’s trying so hard to be _good_, and being good means not being sent to the asshole principal’s office for punching some snobby rich kid.

But that’s before the explosion, he doesn’t have to worry about school anymore.

After all, Jason Todd died before he graduated.

And Jason Todd is still dead on every official document there is.

(Sometimes he wishes that was in fact still the case, and other times he fights with broken bones and sharpened teeth and blood stained fists to prove that he is here and alive.

It’s complicated)

He still reads though, reads books that intrigue and fascinate him and leave him utterly consumed in the story no matter how affronted or upset he is with someone's choices.

It’s utterly enchanting to read the words and be swept away by them, he craves it, it’s like a release and a calling and a coping mechanism for every fucked up thing in the universe and it’s _beautiful_.

(It’s not a saviour, but then again, few things can save Jason Todd now, and he’s been burning those bridges since day one.)

For all the books he’s read, he still finds it difficult to put into words some things. Will likely never really be able to put them into words.

(There are some things that hurt too much, that burn with a special kind of feeling, these are the things that get left behind in the retellings, in the stories.

Ask Barbara Gordon, Dick Grayson, Wally West, Roy Harper, Tim Drake, Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, and superhero, vigilante, or anti-hero to grace this god-forsaken planet.

There are things no one else needs to know, things that no words used to describe will ever truly capture.

Ask Jason Todd, fifteen years old and holding onto his words like prayers, quotes and knowledge he held inside and tried to find the answer from, the advice, the salvation.

It failed him then, but really, Jason knew it would.

Not even the long dead could care for a little scrap of a kid, too angry and too wild and too _reckless_, with not enough room for love in him.)

Sometimes he is so unbearably sad and sometimes he is so, _so_ angry and feels so _alone_. And most of all he just wants to be loved again. To be loved unconditionally and healthily and not have every ‘I love you’ feel like the swing of the crowbar, every ‘I’m sorry’ feel like the burning of the explosion.

Jason Todd is incapable of being loved.

So he takes what he can, immerses himself into worlds that are not his own.

Here’s a secret, books can have scars.

They are covered in them, from the knicks and creases of use and dropping, to the smear of food and ink that have long since dried, to the crackling texture of long dried water.

Tears are especially easy to find.

Little droplets of saltwater stains forever imprinted on paper and ink.

Wet paper never dries quite right you know.

Everyone who knows Jason Todd came back from the dead knows that he came back wrong.

And everyone knows that the Red Hood is ruthless and cruel and without care.

(Well, everyone knows this except the children and the men and women running scarred from their lovers or their parents or their ‘friends’, these people know that Red Hood is nothing but empathy and gentleness hidden under a helmet in the hope no one will see.

Children are not scared of the Red Hood, he is like a cat to them, prickly and cautious and best not to be aggravated. But never malicious when given no reason to be. At least not to them.

<strike>Bats and Birds were always harder for Jason to focus on, to keep grounded around, to stay firmly inside his head and not float outside of it.)</strike>

But tear stained books tell a different tale.

After all, the thing children want most is to be loved.

And Jason Todd is still a child at heart.

(Children are not the only ones who want love so badly it hurts

Jason Todd will never admit that though.)

**Author's Note:**

> november is almost over and here I am, filling prompts for whumptober.
> 
> i am aware that i am horrible with time
> 
> [writing tumblr](https://rose-blooms-red.tumblr.com) and [main tumblr](https://themessofthecentury.tumblr.com)


End file.
